Cherry Crumble Ice Cream

There’s not much to say about this ice cream, except that it’s a winner! Made using the base recipe from Jeni’s Ice Cream book, it has that tongue smackin’ cream cheese tang which makes it hard not to steal spoonfuls of it, no matter what time of day, yup even breakfast…seriously.

The recipe is so easy to manipulate and add your own ideas to. Are you like me and think about recipes in random places, like the freeway or hanging out at the Doctors office? I think about food a lot! There’s so many flavors of ice cream available that I don’t think I’ll ever truly invent one but I’ll keep racking my brain hoping one day I’ll find one. My last ice cream adventure was a blue cheese with caramel and candied pecans, which I loved…sadly I was the only one. Except for my boy, but then again he’d eat worms so true taste verification is a little sketchyfrom him.

Well, after many hours of brain racking and freeway think sessions I came up with…cherry. I know, you’re thinking Is that it? But sometimes you have to leave fancy at home and stick to tried and tested. I was thinking of a cherry pie ice cream but prepping that could get lengthy. The crumble mixture is simple and adds a nice crunchy cookie flavor. Unbelievably as I was making my ultra- delicious cherry crumble ice cream, I noticed a post for Peach crumble ice cream entering the blog world from The Baker Chick. I hope she believes me that I didn’t set out to counterfeit her recipe (which is different) All I can say is…great minds and I’m sure there’s room in the world for two awesome ice cream crumbles.

In a bowl, combine the flour, butter and sugar. Squeeze the butter using your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Spread the crumble mixture onto a cookie tray and bake for 20 minutes and golden brown.

Place the cherries into a saucepan and add the white sugar and water. Simmer for about 15 minutes and the mixture has thickened. Set aside to cool.

For the ice cream

Mix two tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch. Whisk the cream cheese and the salt together in a medium bowl. Have a large bowl filled with ice.

In a 4 quart pot, combine the rest of the milk, heavy cream, sugar, and corn syrup.

Bring to a rolling boil and simmer for 4 minutes. Add the cornstarch mixture to the milk and bring back to a boil.

Stir for about a minute over a medium heat until the mixture thickens.

Transfer the milk mixture to a large 1 quart zip lock bag, seal and let cool in the ice water bath for about 30 minutes.

Once cooled transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker and process until the ice cream is falling from the sides of the canister, about 25 minutes.

Scoop some of the ice cream into a plastic container and then spoon some cherry mixture on top followed by a sprinkling of crumble mix. Keep alternating like this until there's no ore ice cream left in the canister. Cover with the lid and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Love this! Looks like we both had cherry ice cream on the brain this week. Speaking of brains…mine is ALWAYS on food. Like all the time. So much I think it annoys people. But not food bloggers, we all understand each other :)

Cherry ice cream sounds so much more special than any other kind I can think of, and it’s beautiful. I’ll have to save this recipe to try. My mom is a cherry lover, I’m sure she’d adore this with some hot fudge on top. Nice recipe and blog. Glad I stopped by.